Cass Sunstein, top Obama adviser on regulations, to leave administration

Source: The Washington Post

White House regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, an intellectual mentor to President Obama whose skeptical approach to rule-making frustated the president’s liberal allies, announced Friday he was leaving his post.

Sunstein will depart by the end of the month, officials said. He is returning to the job he left, a professorship at Harvard Law School. In addition, Sunstein will head a new Harvard program on “behavioral economics and public policy.”

Obama thanked Sunstein, whom he met on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School, for balancing the costs of regulations with their benefits. White House officials also lauded Sunstein’s efforts to weed out or streamline old rules. They said he had saved at least $10 billion and millions of hours of paperwork.

“Cass has shown that it is possible to support economic growth without sacrificing health, safety, and the environment,” Obama said in a written statement.